WASHINGTON, D.C., October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – In what pro-lifers are attributing to the hand of God, a Washington D.C. court has dismissed charges against four pro-lifers arrested in a July Red Rose Rescue.

The pro-life supporters and their attorney with Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) were prepared for trial, when the charges of criminal trespass were promptly and unexpectedly dismissed due to there being no witnesses for the prosecution.

Miller, who herself has been arrested taking part in Red Rose Rescues, was quoting one of the four defendants, Father Fidelis Moscinski, of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, on the dismissal of the charges.

"We were ready to stand up for the unwanted unborn in court--and with God's help, endure the court trial and the possible penalties for our act of defense for those scheduled for abortion,” said Father Moscinski. “But what a victory to have the charges dismissed against us. We are so encouraged by this.”

Entering the abortion facility with Father Moscinski was Father David Nix, a priest of the Archdiocese of Denver, William Goodman, who in June of this year had served a 34-day jail term for the December 2, 2017, Red Rose Rescue, and an unidentified female rescuer going by the name of Baby Jane Doe to be in solidarity with the nameless children who are aborted.

LLDF Attorney John Garza was prepared to present a necessity defense in the trial, citing the dangers to preborn children and women posed by the abortion facility.

Capital Women's Services is affiliated with Steven Brigham, a notorious late-term abortion doctor. Brigham has been charged with neglect and fraud in several states for gravely injuring women and was charged with the murder of ten second and third-trimester babies in Maryland, a news release from LLDF said.

The necessity defense can be used when a defendant's conduct is necessary to prevent a greater harm, LLDF said. In this case, Brigham's facilities are known to have a long record of egregious violations against women, including the death of at least one patient.

However, the judge unexpectedly called the Red Rose Rescue case first.

This was unusual, according to LLDF, because the courts usually opt to get through procedural and other less time-consuming matters before calling up trials such as the one involving the Red Rose Rescue.

LLDF reports that the judge asked the parties whether they were ready for trial, and U.S. Attorney Jana Maser, who was prosecuting the government’s case, replied that she was not ready, because she could not produce any witnesses.

The judge then asked Garza how he would like to proceed, and Garza requested a dismissal of all charges - which was immediately granted.

"This all took place in less than thirty seconds," Fr. Nix said.

Fr. Nix and the other rescuers had told Garza, "Because we were there to save lives, we would not accept any plea-bargain or community service."

"We are pleased with the outcome of today's trial," Life Legal Defense Foundation Executive Director Alexandra Snyder said in a statement. "The Red Rose Rescuers are heroes in the pro-life movement, willing to sacrifice their freedom to prevent women and babies from becoming victims of the abortion holocaust. We are honored to stand in their defense and in the defense of the dignity of human life."

Red Rose Rescues are happening again with more frequency after having fallen off for years.

The “Rescue” movement began during the early days of the pro-life movement, but was thwarted when then president Bill Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, making it a federal crime to physically block women from obtaining abortions.

The Red Rose Rescue movement focuses on convincing pregnant women in line to have an abortion of their dignity, hence offering them the rose, and information. No one involved in the Red Rose Rescue has been charged with violating the FACE law.

Fr. Moscinski summed up the outcome of today’s trial as being the Lord’s doing.

“We entered that abortion center, we talked to the mom's, offered them roses and we stayed there to be in solidarity with the unwanted, innocent unborn--and now we have walked out of court!” he stated. “Except for divine intervention, it is inexplicable!"

VATICAN CITY, Italy, October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – German Cardinal Reinhard Marx suggested to the Youth Synod in Rome that more women in leadership positions in the Church is the answer to the Church’s sex abuse crisis.

In his October 11 intervention, Marx proposed giving women more leadership roles in the Church, claiming this step would help fight sexual abuse committed by “closed clerical [male] circles” in the Church. While Pope Francis has stated that "clericalism" is the cause of the crisis, evidence from abuse reports suggests that homosexuality in the priesthood as the underlying cause.

Marx’s full speech, which is entirely dedicated to the promotion of the influence of women in the Church, was published in Katholisch.de and translated by LifeSiteNews’ Maike Hickson.

The study had said in part, “clerical structures and a clerical governance in the Catholic Church” are the main causes of the sex abuse crisis.

“Women in leadership positions in the Church decisively contribute to the breaking up of such closed clerical circles,” Marx said.

Further pointing to the purported problem of a male-dominated Church, Marx added, “The impression that the Church – when it is about power – is finally a Church of men has to be overcome in the Universal Church and also here in the Vatican. Otherwise, young women will not find here no true creative options.”

Marx reminded the Church in his Synod speech that already in 2013 the German bishops had promised to “increase significantly the amount of women in leading positions in the Church that are available for laypeople.”

He also said that the German bishops intended to study further “in theological and pastoral terms the participation of women (as well as laymen in general) in leadership positions.”

The cardinal also reminded his audience of several projects that the German bishops have launched in order to promote women in the Church.

They published in 2015, for example, a document called “To be together Church” which deals with theological questions of women in leading roles in the Church. Moreover, a mentoring program for women has prepared nearly 100 women for leadership positions in the Church.

Additionally, the cardinal pointed to a Day of Study during which the German bishops discussed the gender debate, to include “questions concerning anthropology and sexual morality, the theology of the Sacraments and of the [ecclesial] offices, as well as concerning more equality of the sexes in the Church beyond traditional roles of the sexes and role patterns.”

For Marx, it is not sufficient “to repeat the pertinent magisterial texts” about the dignity of women.

“We have to face the often uncomfortable and impatient questions of the youth about the equality of women also in the Church,” he stated.

For the sake of the Church's “own credibility,” Marx said, she has to give women more participation and leadership, and this “on all levels of the Church, from the parish up to the levels of the diocese, the bishops' conference, and even in the Vatican.”

“We really have to want it and implement it!” Marx insisted.

Note: Follow LifeSite's new Catholic twitter account to stay up to date on all Church-related news. Click here: @LSNCatholic

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Chief Justice John Roberts has referred ethics complaints against his new Supreme Court colleague Brett Kavanaugh to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, stemming from the judge’s forceful response to unsubstantiated claims of sexual assault.

Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed and sworn in last weekend following a bitter three-month battle that primarily concerned his abortion views, then delayed his original confirmation vote by a month with last-minute claims by psychologist Christine Blasey Ford that he attempted to rape her as a drunken teenager in the 1980s.

His first day on the job was reportedly cordial and routine despite outside protesters, but it seems the newest Supreme Court justice’s ordeal isn’t over yet. The day of his confirmation, Judge Karen Henderson of the District of Columbia Circuit announced that “members of the general public” had filed complaints that “do not pertain to any conduct in which Judge Kavanaugh engaged as a judge,” but concern “public statements he has made as a nominee.”

This week, the DC circuit published a letter from Roberts responding to the DC circuit’s request to transfer the matter from itself, where Kavanaugh had previously served thereby presenting a conflict of interest, to another circuit. Roberts selected the 10th Circuit to take over the case.

At issue is Kavanaugh’s forceful testimony replying to Ford’s accusations, during which he expressed visible anger at the media figures and committee Democrats he argued were carrying out a smear campaign against him. At the same time, he was careful not to attack Ford herself, granting that someone else may have assaulted her.

“This confirmation process has become a national disgrace. The Constitution gives the Senate an important role in the confirmation process, but you have replaced advise and consent with search and destroy,” he declared. “Since my nomination in July, there has been a frenzy on the left to come up with something, anything to block my confirmation [...] a Democratic senator on this committee publicly referred to me as evil...evil, think about that word.”

Many conservatives believe the display of righteous indignation demonstrated his innocence and saved his nomination, but liberals quickly adopted the narrative that his combativeness in the face of being called a rapist, as well as his overt criticisms of Democrats, revealed he lacks the temperament and impartiality to sit on the Supreme Court. The Thursday before the final vote, Kavanaugh apologized for his tone in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Gabe Roth of the judicial oversight group Fix the Court toldThe Daily Caller he was “a little disappointed” Roberts picked the 10th Circuit because “its chief judge, Tim Tymkovich, was picked by the Bush administration during the time Kavanaugh was working on judicial nominations.” Regardless, he expected the court to dismiss the complaints because Supreme Court Justices aren’t subject to the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act.

The media, Democrats, and abortion groups have responded to Kavanaugh’s confirmation by calling on their followers to angrily confront Republicans and stoking fears the Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade, which would allow Americans to vote on abortion laws for themselves.

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Another homosexual judge with ties to a LGBT legal group is among President Donald Trump’s latest batch of judicial nominees, this time to the influential Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The White House announced a handful of federal appointees Wednesday, including assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Bumatay. A member of the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Tax Forces Section in the Southern District of California, Bumatay currently advises Attorney General Jeff Sessions on issues including opioids and organized crime.

National Reviewadds that he worked on the confirmations for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Neil Gorsuch, as well as Bush administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

Bumatay would also be the nation’s second openly homosexual federal appeals court judge and the first on the Ninth Circuit, the San Francisco Chroniclenotes. The White House’s press release also notes that he’s a member of the Tom Homann LGBT Law Association, an organization dedicated to the “advancement of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues throughout California and the nation.”

The Homann Association has staked out a number of left-wing positions, including disappointment that the Supreme Court upheld Christian baker Jack Phillips’ right to refuse to make a cake for a same-sex “wedding,” and “unequivocally denounc[ing]” the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military service.

Pro-family advocates agree that Trump’s judicial nominees are one of the highlights of his presidency, potentially shifting the federal judiciary to the right for generations to come. But Bumatay follows Judge Mary Rowland, an open homosexual who has ties to the left-wing Lesbian & Gay Bar Association of Chicago and Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, as the second appointee whose background raises doubts as to whether he would separate his homosexuality from his jurisprudence.

Conservatives see trustworthy nominees as particularly critical on the Ninth Circuit, a notoriously liberal court whose record includes blocking the administration’s transgender troop ban, a string of decisions favorable to Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against David Daleiden and other pro-life undercover investigators, and banning prayer at local school board meetings.

“At this point, it’s virtually impossible in the 9th Circuit to draw a panel with two Republican-appointed judges. It’s possible, but it’s tough,” South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman explained in March. “This might make it more possible to draw a panel [of two Republican appointed judges] every now and then."

Trump’s pro-life record has largely pleased conservatives, but his record on LGBT issues is more mixed. In addition to the transgender troop ban, he has supported religious liberty, rejected “pride month,” and staffed his administration with pro-family leaders such as Mike Pompeo and Howard Nielson, Jr.

On the other hand, Trump has nominated a variety of pro-homosexual officials to various government posts and continued a number of Obama-era pro-LGBT policies, such as an executive order on “gender identity nondiscrimination” and U.S. support for international recognition of homosexual relations at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

He publicly praised the pro-LGBT group Log Cabin Republicans in January, and declared after the election that the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling forcing all fifty states to recognize same-sex “marriage” was “settled law.”

The conservative Federalist Society plays a significant advisory role in the administration’s selection of judicial nominees, a relationship started during Trump’s campaign to reassure skeptical Republicans about the formerly liberal businessman’s reliability.

CHICAGO, October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A Chicago priest who advertises on the internet as a “gay” masseur who does “man to man bodywork” says he has permission to host an openly homosexual group at his Catholic priory.

Openly homosexual Fr. Michael Guimon is a member of the Friars Servants of Mary — or Servites — and head of the priory at Our Lady of Sorrows National Basilica. He’s also the Servites’ formation director and senior care minister, with specialties of “spiritual companion and massage therapist.”

Fr. Guimon lives in the same archdiocese as Fr. Paul Kalchik, who was recently removed from his parish after he privately burned a rainbow-and-cross banner against the wishes of Chicago archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich.

Fr. Kalchik, who maintains that a previous pastor of his parish died in the rectory attached to a sex-machine, remains in hiding after being threatened with commitment to a psychiatric hospital for defying Cupich and destroying the rainbow banner that once hung behind the altar as an act of “exorcism.”

Indeed, the treatment of the two priests brings into sharp relief a double standard in Chicago under Cupich’s leadership.

Known for his LGBT sympathies, Cupich’s group at the current youth synod is the only one to call for recognition of “other types of families.” Cupich also said at the 2015 synod on the family that homosexual persons can decide for themselves if they can receive Holy Communion, a position he reiterated to ABC News.

LifeSiteNews contacted the Archdiocese of Chicago to ask if it endorsed Fr. Guimon’s activities. Communications director Anne Maselli responded by email that she would get back, but she had not by deadline.

LifeSiteNews also made multiple attempts by phone and email to contact Servite provincial superior Fr. John Fontana to verify if the Servites endorsed Fr. Guimon’s activities, but did not hear back by deadline.

LifeSiteNews also called Fr. Chris Krymski, pastor of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows, but did not hear back by deadline.

After LifeSiteNews contacted the archdiocese and the order, the Rainbow Warrior Facebook page disappeared, and the ManKindPride meetup site listing Our Lady of Sorrows as the group’s meeting site now lists it as meeting elsewhere.

Homosexual men need a place to talk: Guimon

Rainbow Warriors is the homosexual offshoot of the ManKind Project, which seeks to “redefine what masculinity is in today’s world,” Guimon told LifeSiteNews in a telephone interview.

The monthly meeting is a place where men are not “afraid of being judged, afraid of being told you’re no good, you’re worthless, you’re a disorder,” and where the main topic is “how we have to put up with the shame that society puts on us as gay men,” he said.

But according to the now-scrubbed Rainbow Warrior Facebook page, where Guimon’s name and phone number appeared, the men discuss much more.

They talk about “how to meet other GBTQQ men for friendship and romantic relationships, to navigating the difficulties of using social media and apps such as Grindr, where men often post false pictures or simply want to have casual sex rather than more intimate relationships.”

Or they discuss “dealing with loneliness, managing their use of pornography, developing spirituality outside of traditional religious institutions, and uncovering the gifts they can offer the broader culture.”

“I mean, if you’re gay, and you want to get married, how do you live a chaste life?”

Being in ‘gay’ meetups is a ‘pastoral thing’: Guimon

Guimon stopped short of saying he supports homosexual “marriage,” but said “the whole issue of being gay in today’s church” is “an ongoing conversation in the Church today.”

“Your scope is very narrow,” he added. “A lot of Catholic theologians, a lot of Catholic people are really weary of Courage, because we know that you cannot change orientation.”

He dismissed the idea anyone would be taken aback that such a group meets in a Catholic priory.

“Oh, come on, come on. Is it really shocking to you?” Guimon said.

As for his membership in homosexual, as well as “gay” nudist meetups — where, he says, many of the men are “married” — that’s “more of a pastoral thing,” said Guimon.

“What I have discovered, it’s an opportunity for gay men to be able to talk to a priest about these issues,” he told LifeSiteNews. “I am able to listen to their questions, and be able to share information with them.”

Moreover, “I have many gifts as a gay man that society needs today,” said Guimon, an admitted fan of pro-LGBT Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin, who he sees as trying to “help people live life instead of condemning them.”

“That’s what Pope Francis is trying to do,” he added.

Guimon -- who asked LifeSiteNews not to use “‘homosexual’, use ‘gay’,” — noted that “gay people are very collaborative, gay people can help heterosexual men learn how to relate with women…gay men are very spiritual.”

He also insisted he’s been a “good priest” for the last 50 years.

“Is there a problem with priests that are gay or straight, as long as we’re celibate?” Guimon asked.

“I’ve been provincial, I’ve been many things, I’ve been a pastor, I’ve been a hospital administrator, I’ve worked with dying people. Have you worked with dying people? Do you know what it is like to have cancer? Do you what it’s like to have lost somebody?” he added.

“I know what the Church teaches on homosexuality,” responded LifeSiteNews.

“I don’t care about the Church teaching at the moment, I’m asking you some very important questions,” Guimon countered.

“They’re very personal, they’re very fundamental, they’re very human and very Catholic, Christian questions… You’re stuck on sexuality, dear, you are really stuck, you are focused on, life is more than that, and I’m a priest and I minister to people, I don’t minister to things.”

Guimon heard Michael Bland’s sex abuse complaint

The homosexual priest was intimately connected with the case of former Servite priest Michael Bland, whose 2002 testimony to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops of his sexual abuse by a Servite was instrumental in bishops’ adopting the Dallas Charter to protect minors.

Guimon — who said he came “out” at age 60 — was also adamant his homosexuality did not affect his judgment in Bland's case.

Ordained a Servite in 1987, Bland alleged in 1994 that then-Servite superior Fr. John Huels sexually molested him as a 15-year-old in New Jersey.

Guimon, who was second-in-command to Huels and completing a four-year assignment in Rome at the time, heard Bland’s complaint.

“Michael called me,” Guimon told LifeSiteNews. “I invited him to Rome…I facilitated the whole thing with Michael and John.”

Guimon told Huels -- who admitted to the abuse -- that “he had to go to treatment, he had to resign.” Guimon was elected provincial in his stead and “facilitated the whole thing until it was finished.”

As well as resigning, Huels was barred from working with minors, but did not leave the priesthood or the order. Rather, in 1997, he began teaching canon law at Saint Paul’s University in Ottawa.

When Fr. Huels’ name and place of employment became public in 2002 because of Bland’s testimony, he took a leave from Saint Paul’s, where he was vice dean of canon law, citing “severe depression.”

He also left the Servites and sought laicization from the priesthood.

However, he returned to Saint Paul’s as a layman in 2005 to teach canon law, a position he kept until September, when Bland wrote Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa.

In the wake of the sex abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church, Prendergast acted swiftly, writing to Bland within four days that Huels had been removed from his post, National Catholic Reporter reported.

“I can assure you that we are striving to do justice for those who have been harmed by abuse and to bring about healing,” Prendergast wrote to Bland. “Be assured of my prayers for you and all who have been victimized by clergy.”

Bland has consistently maintained the Servites asked him to reconcile with Huels, but he refused to do so, and left the order and the priesthood in 1996.

When Guimon dealt with Bland’s accusation 24 years ago, reconciliation “was in my conversation with Michael, yes, but you can’t reconcile with you’re in so much pain,” he told LifeSiteNews.

“I mean, that would be the goal eventually in life, to come to an understanding that what happened was not correct, was not the thing to do, it’s horrendous, okay?” he said.

“I would hope reconciliation would take place. That’s the message of the Gospel, to bring people together again, no matter what has happened.”

How a global ‘LGBT’ coalition is lobbying the Vatican Youth Synod

ROME, October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — An international coalition of lesbian, gay and transgender groups are striving “to take advantage” of the Youth Synod to pressure the Church to change her teaching and pastoral approach on homosexuality, it has emerged.

This international “LGBT” coalition has been lobbying the Church since the first family synod in 2014. It has expanded into what is now collectively known as Equal Future. Its stated aim is to convince bishops of the “damage done to young people as a direct result of the Catholic Church’s anti-LGBTQ teachings and practices.”

Equal Future unites radical US-based LGBT activist groups such as Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD with dissident Catholic groups such as New Ways Ministries and Dignity.

But arguably the greatest threat comes from a handful of influential Church officials who appear to be actively encouraging the normalization of homosexuality in the Church — or at the very least not teaching the fullness of the Church’s doctrine on the issue.

Support from the C-9 secretary?

LifeSite discovered this global “LGBT” coalition after news this week that Pope Francis’ secretary to the C-9 Council of Cardinals had delivered an address to one of its Italian affiliates near Rome.

Speaking at Italy’s 5th Forum of “LGBT” Christians on Oct. 6, Bishop Marcello Semeraro took up Pope Francis’ image in Amoris Laetitia, n. 299 of the Church as a welcoming mother who desires to integrate divorced and civilly married Catholics, and broadened it to include those in the “LGBT” movement. The bishop, however, failed to reassert the Church’s teaching regarding homosexuality, saying that he “wasn’t [there] to give lessons on … morality.”

Such silence runs contrary to a Letter to Bishops on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1986 under then-Cardinal Ratzinger, instructing them that “silence about [the Church’s teaching] in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral.”

The Oct. 6 event, held in Bishop Semararo’s diocese of Albano, featured a video message by Fr. James Martin, SJ, a consulter to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications since 2017.

In his talk, Semeraro, who in 2016 expressed support for same-sex civil unions, also reassured the group that synod organizers had incorporated their contributions into the synod’s working document [Instrumentum laboris], in paragraph 197:

LGBT youths, through various contributions that were received by the General Secretariat of the Synod, wish to “benefit from greater closeness” and experience greater care by the Church, while some [Bishops’ Conferences] ask themselves what to suggest “to young people who decide to create homosexual instead of heterosexual couples and, above all, would like to be close to the Church”.

Reading the passage aloud, the bishop of Albano invited the group to “trust in the Spirit” who “speaks in the Church especially when they all gather together in one place.”

Semeraro’s comments shed light on remarks made last week by Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat of Communications, who told journalists that the “LGBT” acronym’s inclusion in the synod’s working document was based on the contributions of some “episcopal conferences” and “individual groups.”

Ruffini’s remarks were a pivot from a previous claim by the synod’s general secretary, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, that the “LGBT” acronym was quoted from a pre-synod document compiled by young people — a claim that proved untrue.

What “episcopal conferences” was Paolo Ruffini referring to in his remarks? Recently the Italian Catholic agency, La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, reported on a “gay tsunami” that has hit Italy since the Youth Synod began. They cited Bishop Semeraro’s conference in Albano, an Oct. 13 conference in Bari on “Christian Faith and homobitransexuality” with greetings from the local ordinary, Bishop Francesco Cacucci, and other related events. Given the support such initiatives receive in the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, Avvenire, it is likely that the Italian episcopate is one of the “episcopal conferences” Ruffini refers to.

In his speech, Semararo also referred to an earlier talk he had given in May to their umbrella group, the European European Forum of “LGBT” Christians – a coalition actively working to normalize a homosexual lifestyle in the Church. Fr. Martin had also addressed that annual meeting, during a public conference called “Towards the Youth Synod.”

A growing coalition

What is the European Forum of “LGBT” Christians, and how did it expand to become part of Equal Future?

Founded by a gay activist Catholic priest in Paris, in 1982, the European Forum of “LGBT” Christians is “an ecumenical association of ‘LGBT’ Christian groups” in Eastern and Western Europe, including Italy. Its stated aim is “to achieve equality and inclusion for LGBT people within and through Christian churches, other religious bodies and multilateral organizations.”

As Bishop Semeraro was addressing the Albano meeting on Oct. 6, the European Forum of “LGBT” Christians was working to defeat a referendum in Romania to define “family” as a married man and woman. The European Forum said it was “appalling” that the Romanian Orthodox Church should support the referendum and urged the Orthodox Church to “withdraw its support for such a divisive, discriminatory proposal.” The Forum succeeded in its goal and the referendum was defeated, because not enough voters turned out to the polls.

The European Forum’s future activities include a Nov. 9-11 training session in Versailles, France, on how to dialogue with Roman Catholic bishops and clergy. In the Forum’s own words: “It is becoming ever more clear that one of the most effective ways to bring about change in the Church is by sharing our personal stories as LGBT people of faith. When we do this with clergymen in smaller circles, then in turn, with time, it will help influence the whole church hierarchy reaping longer lasting results.”

Lobbying a synod

What was the next step in the European Forum of “LGBT” Christians’ expansion?

In 2014, at the extraordinary Synod on the Family, the European Forum of “LGBT” Christians partnered with other groups around the world to found the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics (GNRC) coalition. One of the chief aims of the GNRC is to work “for the inclusion, dignity and equality of this community in the Roman Catholic Church and society.”

The GNRC assembled in Oct. 2015, in Rome, in the lead up to the Ordinary Synod on the Family.

At the conclusion of the 2015 synod, the GNRC said its final report marked the “beginning of a new era of inclusive pastoral care for and with LGBT people.”

However, they expressed “regret” at the report’s assertion that a child’s best interests “requires parenting by opposite sex couples.” And they “strongly rejected” what they called the report’s “baseless accusation that financial aid to poor countries is conditional on the introduction of laws that institute marriage between same-sex people (n. 76).”

Summing up their remarks on the 2015 synod, the GNRC said: “The door for a more sensitive attentiveness to LGBT issues in the Church has been opened through the Synodal processes of 2014-2015 and, despite opposition, cannot now be closed.”

Enter ‘Equal Future’

Perceiving an open door, the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics in 2018 partnered with influential “LGBT” and dissident groups around the world — including Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD and New Ways Ministry — to launch the ‘Equal Future’ campaign.

Equal Future stated aim is to strive “to take advantage of” the Vatican Youth Synod’s request for “feedback from people of all faiths (and none)” to “help” the heirarchy “consider the damage done as a consequence of the Church’s teaching on LGBT, and to reconsider the teaching itself.”

The ‘About Us’ section on the Equal Future website features two young girls in an affectionate embrace, and just below, an aerial view of the Vatican.

Equal Future provides an online platform that allows people to identify the bishop who is representing their country or region at the Synod and invites them to send an account of their personal story. It also encourages people to “pledge never to give a child or young person the feeling that being LGBT would be a misfortune or a disappointment.” And it uses poll data gathered for itself to convince people in the Church’s hierarchy that the majority of practicing Catholics in the world’s 8 largest Catholic countries want the Church to “change its damaging approach to LGBT young people.”

Tiernan Brady, the Campaign Director of Equal Future, recently called the Youth Synod a “once-in-a-generation moment” and the “closest thing the church gets to a democratic process.”

A varied response

At a Vatican press briefing on Thursday, LifeSite asked Archbishop Bruno Forte — who is likely to be the principal drafter of the synod’s final document, and who infamously smuggled into the 2014 interim report a highly controversial passage on homosexuality — about the influence the LGBT coalition is having on the Synod, and what his hopes are for the final document.

Archbishop Forte responded by saying “the point of departure is that the dignity of every human person regardless of their sexual orientation should always be respected. This is a fundamental point of the biblical message and of the Gospel message in particular.” He added: “Therefore, every human person, whether homosexual or not, should feel respected by Mother-Church.”

Forte continued: “Clearly, in the plan of God as we recognize it, even in the structure of human sexuality there is a male-female reciprocity that we regard as a fundamental value. And it is necessary not only for the sake of procreation but also for the full realization of the human person.”

“Attention towards people who are homosexual does not mean that the Church can simply equate the homosexual experience to a male-female sexuality lived in marriage and fruitfulness,” he said. “They are two different realities and they ought to be considered with a different attention and different pastoral approaches.”

“What counts is that the homosexual person knows that in the Church he will find listening and also a desire to understand the challenges that he carries but also to announce the Gospel as we do for any human being.”

Addressing the issue of “inclusion” at a synod press briefing today, U.S. Bishop Robert Barron reaffirmed past statements that a baptized Catholic with same-sex attraction is “a beloved child of God who has been embraced by the mercy of Jesus Christ and has been invited to a share in the divine life.”

But he immediately added that “the Church also calls people to conversion.”

“Jesus calls, but he always moves people to the fullness of life. And so the Church also has a set of moral demands for everybody, and she calls them to conversion,” the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles and founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries said.

“My hesitation is that ‘inclusion’ is more of a secular term,” he added. “I use the word ‘love.’ The Church reaches out in love, and love is ‘willing the good of the other,’ and sometimes that means calling people to a change of life.”

“I think that’s where the Church’s attitude is situated, in including both of these moments: of course, of outreach and love, but acceptance and inclusion doesn’t mean that we don’t call to conversion.”

The debate over this issue is likely to take center stage next week when paragraph 197 of the Instrumentum laboris is discussed on the floor of the Synod.

October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Donald Wuerl had a few choice words to say regarding Archbishop Carlo Viganò when he was interviewed by a liberal Catholic magazine yesterday.

In a long and laudatory article published by America magazine today, the Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C. – and its apostolic administrator until his replacement is named – denied Viganò’s allegation that the cardinal lied about knowing of sanctions against disgraced former cardinal Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

“In my read of that testimony, particularly the part that touches me, it is not faithful to the facts,” he told America’s Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell.

“In his testimony, Archbishop Viganò clearly says that there were secret sanctions in some form. But he also says himself that he never communicated them to me. Yet this should have been his duty,” Wuerl continued.

Wuerl said he found it difficult to accept that the Vatican whistleblower holds him responsible for implementing sanctions he says Viganò never told him about. He also does not accept what he called Viganò’s “gratuitous insult” that Wuerl lies when he says that he never received these secret sanctions.

“Certainly I would never have guessed that there were sanctions against Cardinal McCarrick from all the times I encountered him at receptions and events hosted by Archbishop Viganò at the Apostolic Nunciature. The gap between what he says and what he did and his easy calumny call into question for me the real intent and purpose of his letter,” Wuerl said.

The Cardinal added that there is “something radically wrong with any document that doesn’t provide proof for accusations of that gravity.”

Wuerl, who succeeded McCarrick as the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., repeated his claim that nobody had ever told him about his predecessor’s predatory sexual behavior.

“I have clarified over and over again that during the 12 years that I served as archbishop of Washington no one ever brought me any allegation of misconduct, sexual misconduct by Cardinal McCarrick,” he said.

Viganò: ‘Unthinkable’ Wuerl wouldn’t have known of McCarrick sanctions

In his original testimony, Archbishop Viganò said that it was “unthinkable” that his predecessor as Apostolic Nuncio to the United States would not have informed Wuerl of Pope Benedict’s sanctions against McCarrick.

“In any case, I myself brought up the subject with Cardinal Wuerl on several occasions, and I certainly didn’t need to go into detail because it was immediately clear to me that he was fully aware of it,” he continued.

“I also remember in particular the fact that I had to draw his attention to it, because I realized that in an archdiocesan publication, on the back cover in color, there was an announcement inviting young men who thought they had a vocation to the priesthood to a meeting with Cardinal McCarrick,” Viganò recollected.

He said that he had telephoned McCarrick, who replied that he had known nothing about the meeting, but that he would cancel it.

“If, as he now continues to state, he knew nothing of the abuses committed by McCarrick and the measures taken by Pope Benedict, how can his answer be explained?” the whistleblower demanded.

Viganò said that Wuerl’s statements that he knew nothing about the abuses or the sanctions were “laughable.”

“The Cardinal lies shamelessly and prevails upon his Chancellor, Monsignor Antonicelli, to lie as well,” he said.

Viganò also called Wuerl one of Pope Francis’ “protégés,” and alleged that the pontiff had set a “trap” for him by asking for his opinion of the American archbishop. The former Apostolic Nuncio said that he would not tell the Pope if Wuerl was “good or bad” but instead told him of two occasions in which the then-Archbishop of Washington had been pastorally careless.

As the McCarrick scandal, the criticism of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report, and Viganò’s allegations continued to rage through the Church in the United States, Wuerl asked Pope Francis in September to accept his resignation, which he’d tendered two years ago when he turned 75. Pope Francis did so in an admiring letter post-dated to today.

Wuerl ‘moved’ by letter he received from Pope Francis

Yesterday, Wuerl told O’Connell that he was “moved” by themes the pontiff had mentioned in his letter.

“I was very moved that [the pope’s letter] highlights what is so important to me, namely that the shepherd’s first responsibility is to his flock, is to the people entrusted to his pastoral care and that the unity of the flock is so important,” Wuerl said.

The cardinal said that to “serve that unity” as Archbishop he would have had to concentrate on defending himself, which would “have taken us in a wrong direction” instead of “trying to do the healing and unity as quickly as possible.”

“That’s why I asked the Holy Father to accept my resignation so that a new and fresh leadership did not have to deal with these other issues,” he continued.

Wuerl appreciated that Pope Francis did not think that he had covered up abuse but had merely made “mistakes.”

“I made errors of judgment when we were dealing with all those cases before the Dallas Charter,” he told O’Connell, referring to the U.S. bishops’ 2002 guidelines on handling priestly sex abuse cases. “Some of those errors in judgment were based on professional psychological evaluations, some of the errors were based on moving too slowly as we tried to find some verification of the allegations. Those were all judgmental errors, and I certainly regret them.”

Wuerl continued to defend his record in Pittsburgh, saying, “I think it is also worth noting that all those priests who were faced with allegations in my time there, if there was any substantiation for them they were removed from any ministry that would put them in contact with young people.”

Wuerl said that “a careful reading” of both the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s response shows that he acted in “a very responsible way” to remove priests guilty of sexual abuse.

When asked if he had any regrets about his actions as Bishop of Pittsburgh, Wuerl would not say yes or no.

“It’s a hard question to answer because in those early years of my ministry, that was before the change in canon law, before the Essential Norms, there were a lot of things that I did that went in the direction of trying to get some proof of allegations,” he told O’Connell.

He contrasted current norms, in which Church personnel are put on leave as soon as an allegation is made today, with the canonical norms he said were “operative” when he began ministry in Pittsburgh.

“Then we were required to have some modicum of proof before moving out the person,” he explained.

October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Three days after posting on Twitter that he does not “want or have” Jesus as King, Brisbane Archbishop Coleridge broke his silence, clarifying that he does not “favour royalist ideologies.”

“I worship Jesus reigning from the Cross, whose ‘kingdom is not of this world’ and who ‘casts the mighty from their thrones’...I don’t favour royalist ideologies ‘of this world’ which make Christ remote, the Church triumphalist, the Pope and bishops princely etc.,” he tweeted on Oct. 10.

Responding to a tweet earlier this month stating that “Most people want Jesus as a consultant rather than a King,” Archbishop Mark Coleridge remarked, “Not too sure I want (or have) him as either.”

The Brisbane Archbishop’s words sparked a backlash of tweets, some of which condemned the prelate’s words, while others sought to make sure that he meant his words to be taken at face value.

LifeSiteNews reached out to the Brisbane Chancery seeking clarification on his original tweet, but never received a reply.

Catholics hold, following the book of Revelation that Jesus is the “Lord of lords and King of kings.” St. Paul teaches in his letter to Philippians that at the name of Jesus, “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth.”

The Church is clear that the Kingship of Christ is not simply spiritual. In his 1925 encyclical Quas Primas which instituted the feast of Christ the King, Pope Pius XI called it a “grave error” for one to say that “Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs.”

This is the case, he said, since “by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to Him by the Father, all things are in his power.”

Thus the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. To use the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: “His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.” Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In him is the salvation of the individual, in him is the salvation of society. “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved.”

Cardinal Raymond Burke told Catholics at the Rome Life Forum in May that they must consciously place themselves under the “Kingship of Christ” in the face of enemies of the Church today who are attempting to “infiltrate the life of the Church herself and to corrupt the Bride of Christ by an apostasy from the Apostolic Faith.”

“The Kingship of Christ is, by nature, universal, that is, it extends to all men, to the whole world. It is not a kingship over only the faithful or over only the things of the Church, but over all men and all of their affairs,” he said.

Archbishop Coleridge has shown himself to be an ardent supporter of Pope Francis’ agenda for the Church. He stated in 2015 that the Catholic saying “love the sinner, hate the sin” with reference to homosexuality no longer holds since the distinction “no longer communicates” “in the real world” where sexuality is “part of [your] entire being.”

He has also argued that using the word “adultery” for remarried divorcees needs to end. He criticized the four dubia Cardinals in 2016 for searching for what he called “false clarity” amid “shades of gray.” In 2016 Coleridge’s archdiocese defended the staging of a sexually charged, explicitly anti-Christian ballet and fashion show in a Catholic church.

He recently made derisive comments against Archbishop Viganò, suggesting that the Vatican whistleblower thinks he’d make a better pope than Francis.

The Archbishop’s most recent tweet was met with criticism on Twitter.

One suggested the Archbishop’s explanation was disingenuous:

“Sleight of hand here? Misconstruing Christ's word's before the Resurrection, mis-labelling His reign as a royalist ideology, let alone causing Christ to be remote. Then challenge doctrine on the Church Triumphant but add a political sweetner with those untrustworthy 'princes'."

Sleight of hand here? Misconstruing Christ's word's before the Resurrection, mis-labelling His reign as a royalist ideology, let alone causing Christ to be remote. Then challenge doctrine on the Church Triumphant but add a political sweetner with those untrustworthy 'princes' ..

And some chose to simply quote Scripture as a corrective to the Archbishop’s unsatisfying response:

“Jesus does reign over the Church even now: ‘The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies!’ -(Psalm 110: 2 ESV),” tweeted Patrick Williams. “Christ is King over all, even if all do not accept it (Phil 2:9). Jesus is Messiah, the King who is seated at God's right hand.”

Jesus does reign over the Church even now:"The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies!" -(Psalm 110: 2 ESV). Christ is King over all, even if all do not accept it (Phil 2:9). Jesus is Messiah, the King who is seated at God's right hand.

Francis’ glowing send-off of Wuerl signals he’s ‘not the Pope to clean out the stables’: scholar

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis’ praise of Cardinal Wuerl for his “nobility” and “docility to the Spirit” in his letter accepting the Cardinal’s resignation signals that Francis is “not the Pope to clean out the stables” of the abuse crisis that is rocking the Church, a Catholic scholar said.

“In the Roman Curia and in many Bishops' Conferences there is a widespread attitude that bishops and senior officials should never be publicly disgraced: there should be no 'brutta figura' [loss of face],” Shaw explained. “Even when sacked for bad behaviour, they should be allowed to depart in a dignified manner.”

“One would expect, then, a carefully-worded and diplomatic send-off from the Pope on such an occasion, but Pope Francis' letter goes far beyond this. It sounds like a letter written by a political leader forced to sack an underling very much against his will,” he continued.

It seems remarkable to Shaw that Pope Francis has failed to use this opportunity to distance himself from the “nightmarish, interconnected abuse allegations and convictions” rocking the Catholic Church in the USA.

“He seems to be sending the signal that he is not the Pope to clean out the stables,” Shaw remarked.

Francis’s warm letter to a prelate implicated in cover-up of abuse of both minors and seminarians seems at odds with his 2014 pledge of “zero tolerance” for sexual predators. It also seems out of tune with his theory that the roots of the sex abuse crisis stem from “clericalism”.

In his letter to Wuerl, the Pope merely mentioned “some mistakes” the Cardinal had made regarding abusive priests, indicating that he did not believe the former archbishop had covered up or ignored abuse.

“You have sufficient elements to ‘justify’ your actions and distinguish between what it means to cover up crimes or not to deal with problems, and to commit some mistakes,” Francis wrote. “However, your nobility has led you not to choose this way of defense. Of this, I am proud and thank you.”

However, Wuerl did indeed justify his actions as Bishop of Pittsburgh. After the Philadelphia Grand Jury Report was released, he published a website that defended his handling of clerical sexual abuse cases. Called “The Wuerl Record”, it was removed after criticism.

Wuerl’s resignation comes in the wake of a barrage of allegations that he mishandled and covered up instances of criminal sexual abuse by priests while he was bishop of Pittsburgh, from 1988-2006. In a sweeping grand jury report on criminal sexual abuse released on August 14, Wuerl was mentioned some 200 times.

The cardinal was also accused in August by a former apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Viganò, of lying "shamelessly" in stating that he did not know about now ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's abuse of seminarians.

Columnist Fr. Raymond de Souza suggested that Wuerl was brought down because his priests became tired of a “clerical culture of mendacity.”

Writing in theNational Catholic Register, Fr. de Souza posited that Wuerl’s resignation has come about because his priests no longer believed him.

“When Cardinal Wuerl traveled to Rome to meet with Pope Francis in August about this future, the Holy Father told him to return home and consult with his priests,” De Souza wrote. “The cardinal did so in early September and soon after announced that he would be asking Pope Francis to accept his resignation…”

De Souza stated that what brought Wuerl down in the eyes of his priests was the McCarrick crisis:

“Precisely, his repeated insistence that he did not know about Cardinal McCarrick until the Archdiocese of New York announced in June that an allegation of sexual abuse of minor had been ‘substantiated’,” the columnist wrote.

“His priests did not believe him,” De Souza continued. “They thought that he was lying in public and lying to them. When Archbishop Carlo Viganò wrote that Cardinal Wuerl ‘lies shamelessly’ in his ‘testimony’ published in late August, it confirmed conclusions that many Washington priests had already arrived at.”

De Souza indicated that bishops often hide the truth from — or lie outright to — their priests and guessed that the priests of Washington had tired of this “culture of clerical mendacity”.

“A culture of clerical mendacity can take hold in which violations of the Eighth Commandment no longer have the power to shock and are treated as routine,” he wrote.

“And when clerical culture accommodates itself to routine violations of the Eighth Commandment, matters violating the Seventh Commandment — embezzlement, fraud, theft — and the Sixth Commandment — failing in chastity of all kinds, including sexual abuse — are not far behind,” he continued.

“It may be that the priests of Washington, after Pennsylvania, after McCarrick, were just tired of a culture that was less than forthright.”

De Souza hopes that Wuerl’s resignation will help cleanse clerical culture of “one of its most serious vices, the failure to tell the truth.”

WEST YORKSHIRE, United Kingdom, October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A biologically male rapist who “identifies” as a woman has received a life sentence for sexually assaulting four female inmates at an all-female facility, as well as for his previous offenses.

Stephen Wood, a 52-year-old man and convicted sex offender and pedophile who now goes by the name "Karen White,” was incarcerated at the all-female New Hall Prison. He had previously pled guilty for raping one woman in 2003 and another in 2016, and was awaiting sentencing for stabbing a neighbor last year.

Soon after arriving at the facility, he allegedly exposed himself to one female inmate, put a second inmate’s hand on his breast and made “inappropriate comments about oral sex,” pushed himself “indecently” against a third, and kissed a fourth on the neck.

Wood was subsequently transferred to the all-male HM Prison Leeds, with the Prison Service apologizing for previously putting him with actual women.

People who knew Wood (who has also gone by the name David Thompson) give conflicting testimony as to whether he sincerely “identifies” as a woman or is merely a drag artist. He had not undergone sex-reassignment surgery, but his claims of “gender identity” were enough to get him remanded to the women’s facility.

"You are a predator and highly manipulative and in my view you are a danger,” Judge Christopher Batty told Wood during sentencing, the BBC reports. "You represent a significant risk of serious harm to children, to women and to the general public."

“She is allegedly a transgender female,” prosecutor Christopher Dunn stressed. "The prosecution say allegedly because there's smatterings of evidence in this case that the defendant's approach to transitioning has been less than committed,” apparently “so the defendant can use a transgender persona to put herself in contact with vulnerable persons she can then abuse."

The BBC says Wood is “highly unlikely” to ever return to a women’s facility even if legally declared female, due to the threat he poses. It notes that Wood once admitted to a probation officer that he could sexually abuse a child and "think nothing of it.”

Breitbart Londonadds that at least 41% of all gender-confused inmates in English and Welsh jails are sex offenders who pose a threat to female inmates, according to the feminist group Fair Play for Women.

“‘Karen’ used her penis in the sexual assaults. If the Govt goes ahead with its plans to allow gender self-declaration, ‘Karen’ will legally be a woman. Are we all just fine with that?” asked UK journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer, referencing a government proposal to let-gender-confused individuals change their legal gender without a medical diagnosis.

90-year-old philosopher priest: Pope Francis is at the center of Church’s current crisis

October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The biggest crisis in the Catholic Church right now is not whether bishops, cardinals or priests are sinners, a noted priest and author said. It is whether the Church will uphold its own teaching. And at the center of the crisis is Pope Francis.

“The Church is being watched to see if it upholds the natural law in its own teachings and practices,” Jesuit Father James V. Schall said, “or whether it joins the world and thereby undermines its claim to consistency and truth of doctrine since its beginning.”

Schall, former Georgetown University political science professor, began his October 8 column in Crisis Magazine by referring to the recent highly criticalreport on the Francis pontificate in the prominent German magazine, Der Spiegel.

The magazine’s report criticized Pope Francis’s leadership of the Church and charged him with ignoring abuse survivors in Argentina. It had the subtitle, “The Greatest Crisis in the History of the Church.”

Catholics have voiced anger and increasingly called for answers in the Church’s sexual abuse scandal after allegations surfaced beginning in June that former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick abused seminarians, young priests and at least one minor over decades.

The McCarrick revelations were followed by the Pennsylvania grand jury report released in August detailing abuse by some 300 priests over 70 years in six dioceses there.

Later in August, former papal nuncio to the U.S. Carlo Maria Viganò released testimony implicating Francis and other high-level prelates in covering for McCarrick. Viganò has been in hiding since.

Francis initially stated he would not say “a word” about the allegations, and then proceeded to cryptically criticize an unspecified “Great Accuser” repeatedly in his Mass homilies.

The McCarrick scandal has brought Francis’ handling of sex abuse under greater scrutiny.

At the same time concerns persist over his leadership with regard to Church teaching on sexuality and marriage – owing to his apparent departure from the teachings of his predecessors, especially in the outcome of the Synod on the Family and its resultant exhortation Amoris Laetitia that has been used to allow Catholics living in objectively sinful situations to receive Holy Communion.

Most people want to be fair to the pope and they also want to know the facts, said Schall, both in his handling of abuse in Argentina, and also with regard to the McCarrick case.

“People are also puzzled by the pope’s refusal to answer what seem to be quite legitimate and straightforward questions about what he teaches,” he said. “Common sense would normally suggest that, if someone is not guilty, he would be anxious to state why, to clear the record, as it were. The pope’s silence, fairly or unfairly, suggests to most people of good will that something was covered up, something is not quite right.”

Whether or not the saga broached by Der Spiegel actually constitutes the "greatest crisis" in Church history, Schall said, “it certainly is a crisis of major proportions that challenges the credibility of the Church on its own terms.”

“Pope Bergoglio himself seems willing to talk about almost every subject but his own beliefs and record,” he said. “They seem most at issue. The crisis at this stage, whether we like it or not, is precisely about the present pope, what he believes and which decisions he made.”

“It is not directly about whether Catholicism is objectively true or not,” he continued. “Rather it is a question of whether the Catholic Church, in its own testimony about itself, is consistent with its own teachings.”

By suggesting that this crisis is the “greatest” in the Church’s history, Der Spiegel is taking the Church at its own word, wrote Schall.

“It compares the Church’s own teachings with what is practiced or proposed by Pope Francis,” he said. “The implication is that the crisis is of the Church’s own making.”

“It is not due to some barbarian invasion, a Masonic plot, or some other outside force imposing on it or threatening it,” said Schall. “It is being threatened by its own ministers not only for not living according to Christian moral standards but also in not teaching what is good.”

The priest philosopher continued, “The irony, to be specific, is that disordered man-man sexual relations have become a civil “right” in many countries but the same relationship is a natural law aberration according to Church teaching.”

“The world watches to see if the Church will join the world in approving these relations as “rights” in the public order and in the Church,” said Schall. “Or will it reject them?”

It is reasonable to ask what the Church’s ‘greatest’ crisis would be, he wrote.

“It would have something to do with pride, as in placing a human opinion over a divinely revealed or rational teaching,” stated the priest. “It would have to be an embracing of “this world,” spoken of in John’s Gospel as a world that rejects Christ’s coming and his Cross.”

Scripture passages in 2 Timothy and Matthew 25 also signal that a serious crisis can flare up when “unworthy priests and prelates are found within the Church itself,” Father Schall said.

He cited other examples, such as Francis himself often speaking of clericalism and Pharisees in the Church, Pope Paul VI’s speaking of the “smoke of Satan” in the Church, and Ezekiel and St. Augustine giving warnings that “unworthy shepherds might prevail among us.”

“On the other hand, at least the papacy was supposed to have been a place where “the gates of hell” did not prevail,” said Schall. “Popes could be sinful in their personal lives but still would not teach false doctrine or approve immoral activities.”

Therefore, he said, the “greatest crisis” of the Church, is not the discovery that clerics are themselves sinners.

“Christ was sent not for the just but the unjust. He was sent to grant forgiveness to whoever asked for it,” the priest wrote. “But he also told us to stop sinning. Therefore, the fact that sinners populate the world and the Church, even after Christ established rules to live by, cannot surprise anyone.”

Even those who do not think the “aberrations” some priests and bishops are accused of committing equate to sins or disorders recognize that “the Church is the last bastion of moral integrity as seen in its classical philosophic and religious form,” he said.

And, he said, they also see that the serious troubles the Church itself is in are primarily due to its own actions.

“We can say that the issue is not over whether the pope is a sinner, naïve, or weak, but whether he has approved teachings or moral behaviors that he is obliged to oppose,” said Father Schall. “If he has taken this step in some obviously authoritative way, then Der Spiegel will be proved right.”

“A reversal of fundamental teaching at the highest levels of the Church would constitute the “greatest crisis” in Catholic history,” he said. “It is an act of faithfulness to respectfully hope Pope Francis clarifies his own teachings. It does not seem like too much to ask and many, including Der Spiegel, are asking it.”

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October 12, 2018 (California Family Council) – A famous San Francisco Drag Queen with a prostitution record named Jose Julio Sarria is lauded for his honesty in a new second-grade textbook being introduced in school districts throughout California. The new curriculum was created to comply with a 2011 state law requiring that LGBT historical figures be added to K-12 curriculum. Although the California State Board of Education recommended several textbooks that comply with the FAIR Education Act, the final decision on which textbooks to use is in the hands of local school districts.

"California textbooks should provide information, not indoctrination. Many parents have strong objections to equating the moral character of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King to a drag queen with a criminal record," said California Family Council President Jonathan Keller.

"In addition, many mothers and fathers find it highly inappropriate to introduce six and seven-year-old children to transgenderism, cross dressing, sexual orientation, and other controversial sexualized topics. The law does not require this and educators should not accept it."

The second-grade history-social science book, My World published by Pearson, is one of several recommended options being piloted and reviewed by public elementary schools around California. The Pearson curriculum promotes universally loved American historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. for their strong moral character right along side other controversial LGBT "heroes" like Governor Candidate Gavin Newsom, and Sarria.

Sarria is lauded as a "Champion of Gay Rights" in part for his openness and honesty about his gay identity and his fondness for dressing in drag when he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors over 50 years ago.

"[Sarria] ran for public office in 1961. He decided to be honest," the second grade textbook reads. "He told people he was gay and that sometimes he dressed as a woman. He was the first person to do this when running for office."

Later in the lesson students are asked to write down how Sarria's honesty inspired others. But the text fails to mention that Sarria, also known as Empress Jose I, was a world famous San Francisco drag queen with a checkered past. For instance, in a book written about his life, The Empress is a Man, there is a whole chapter dedicated to Sarria's arrest and conviction for solicitation after he was caught during a sting operation at the St. Francis Hotel. The criminal record forced him to give up his plans to be a teacher.

The second-grade lesson pictured below is being piloted right now in the Elk Grove Unified School District. Parents are encouraged to come view the new curriculum on October 11, and asked to give the school district their input. Parents will have additional opportunities to view the curriculum over the next several months before the Elk Grove Unified School Board gives their final approval in the early part of next year. Contact the Elk Grove board members and let them know what you think of this new textbook.

According the the California Department of Education website, instruction in history–social science has to include the contributions of those identifying as LGBT in order to comply with the FAIR Education Act, "but again it falls to the teacher and the local school and district administration to determine how the content is covered and at which grade level(s)."

Although these lessons talk about sexuality and gender identity, they are not considered sex education by the state, because they don't talk about human reproductive organs. Therefore, school districts are not mandated to let parents opt-out their children from these lessons. Yet, school districts can create an opt-out policy for lessons that involve sexual orientation or gender identity if they choose.

For more information about Sarria, visit his foundation Facebook page, and a movie website about his life.

October 12, 2018 (Population Research Institute) – A federal appeals court has upheld a Louisiana law requiring abortionists have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The law is intended to provide women with access to emergency care in the event of serious complications.

In a 2-1 ruling, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the admitting privileges requirement in the Louisiana Unsafe Abortion Protection Act (Act No. 620), overturning a previous 2017 ruling from a federal district court which had ruled the Act unconstitutional.

The Unsafe Abortion Protection Act was adopted by the Louisiana legislature in 2014 to ensure that abortionists meet the preexisting minimum qualifications required of other physicians performing surgical procedures at ambulatory surgical clinics (ASCs). The Court reasoned that the Act "performs a real, and previously unaddressed, credentialing function that promotes the wellbeing of women."

Louisiana public health regulations require that a physician working at an ambulatory surgical clinic have admitting privileges and be a "member in good standing" with the medical staff of "at least one hospital in the community."[1] The Unsafe Abortion Protection Act requires abortionists to have admitting privileges at at least one hospital within a 30-mile radius.

Even so, the standards abortionists are required meet under Act No. 620 are more lenient than the requirements for other physicians. In Louisiana, physicians performing surgery are required to be on staff at a hospital.[2]

"This bill doesn't go that far," Representative Katrina Jackson said when introducing the bill in the Louisiana House, "It says that you must have admitting privileges at a hospital, which means if something goes wrong from your surgical procedure, you can call the hospital or follow your patient to the hospital and make sure they receive proper care. And I think that's just a commonsense method that we've always used with physicians who are set up in surgical centers."

After Act 620 was passed, several abortion clinics including Hope Medical Group for Women sued the state of Louisiana, alleging the law placed an undue burden on abortion access. Ongoing litigation has so far prevented the law from going into effect.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found, however, that the admitting privileges requirement under Act 620 did not impose a "substantial burden." Although only one out of the six abortionists in the state had been able to secure full and active admitting privileges,[3] the court found that the abortionists had not made a good-faith effort to comply with the law but had "largely sat on their hands." The Court inferred that one of the abortionists was "waiting for the outcome of this litigation to put forth an actual good-faith effort."

The Louisiana ruling follows another similar decision handed down last month by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals which upheld health regulations issued by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS). The DHSS' rules require abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges and require abortion clinics to meet the minimum state standards for ambulatory surgery centers.

In 2017, a federal district court had blocked the state of Missouri from enforcing the regulations. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's decision this September, finding that the district court had made its decision "based on less than adequate information and an insufficient regard for the relevant standard." Planned Parenthood had initiated the lawsuit against the Missouri DHSS back in 2016.

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Texas law (H.B. 2) nearly identical to the Louisiana and Missouri statutes in its decision in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. Like the Louisiana law, H.B. 2 had required abortion doctors to maintain admitting privileges at a hospital within a 30-mile radius. And like the Missouri health regulations, H.B. 2 had required abortion clinics to meet minimum standards for an ambulatory surgical center.

Hellerstedt is arguably the most important abortion decision handed down by the Supreme Court since Gonzales v. Carhart when, in 2007, the Court banned the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. According to the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, the Hellerstedt decision was "the most significant abortion-related ruling from the Court in more than two decades."[4]

In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that states were prohibited from regulating abortion during the first trimester and could only regulate abortion in the interest of women's health from the second trimester on. In 1992, the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey rejected the trimester framework established by Roe and opened the door to allowing states to regulate abortion at any point during pregnancy, so long as such regulations furthered a legitimate state interest and did not impose an "undue burden" on abortion access prior to viability. It is this "undue burden" standard established in Casey that the courts have generally used ever since for testing the constitutionality of pro-life laws.

The precise definition of what constituted an "undue burden" under Casey "was unclear"[5] after the case was decided. Other decisions, such as Gonzales v. Carhart, have helped define how the Court applies its "undue burden" standard.

In Casey, the Court invalidated a spousal consent law in Pennsylvania under the premise that it was an "undue burden" "in a large fraction of the cases in which [it] is relevant."[6] In Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court built upon Casey's "large fraction" requirement and seemed to imply that the "undue burden" standard is something akin to a "cost-benefit analysis."[7] As the majority in Hellerstedtopined, the standard "requires that courts consider the burdens a law imposes on abortion access together with the benefits those laws confer."[8]

In the recent Louisiana and Missouri cases, the Fifth and Eighth Circuit Courts applied Hellerstedt in this way, weighing the benefits of the pro-life laws against "undue burden" considerations. And even though the Louisiana and Missouri laws are very similar to the Texas law that was struck down by the Supreme Court two years ago, federal appeals courts have interpreted the Hellerstedt standard to allow courts to uphold even identical restrictions so long as they do not impose an "undue burden" under the circumstances particular to each state or context in which they are applied.

In the Louisiana case, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that even though the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act was almost identical to the Texas law overturned by the Supreme Court, the Louisiana law, unlike the H.B. 2, was valid because the law did not create "a substantial burden on a large fraction of women."

The Fifth Circuit Court found that, at most, only 30 percent of women seeking abortion in Louisiana would be affected by Act No. 620. The Court also reasoned that far fewer clinics, if any at all, would close due to Act 620, thus differentiating the Louisiana law from the Texas law which had threatened to drastically reduce the number of abortion providers in the state.

Still, the fact that only one out of six abortionists in Louisiana were able to obtain admitting privileges may serve as an indication that some abortion clinics in the state may close soon nonetheless. In this way, the Fifth Circuit has found a way to balance its binding obligation to follow the Supreme Court's Hellerstedt decision while still protecting the right of the state to regulate abortion as guaranteed by Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Gonzales v. Carhart, and others.

As the Louisiana and Missouri cases may signal a departure from what was intended by the majority in Hellerstedt, the new composition of the U.S. Supreme Court will be key to determining how the cases resolve. With Justice Brett Kavanaugh confirmed to the Court this past weekend, it is widely being touted that the Court has, for the first time since Roe v. Wade, a conservative – and presumably pro-life – majority.

With a conservative majority on the Court, lower federal courts may now have more freedom to interpret Hellerstedt in favor of pro-life laws. The Supreme Court is presumably more likely to allow judgements favoring pro-life restrictions to stand and may be more likely to correct decisions which interpret Hellerstedt strictly.

Still, it remains to be seen how Kavanaugh will position himself on the abortion issue. Kavanaugh has not had the opportunity to decide very many cases on abortion. In the one notorious case where he did, however, in the case where a 17-year-old minor was seeking an abortion while in immigration custody Kavanaugh's opinion in the case merely sought to have her transferred to a sponsor expeditiously after which "she could have the abortion immediately after transfer, if she wishes."[9]

As we are unclear about how Kavanaugh (or Gorsuch for that matter) would decide on a direct challenge to Roe, it would perhaps be beneficial to first try to test the Court with a case on a narrow issue related to abortion rather than providing a full challenge to Roe off the block. A reaffirmation of Roe by the Court would significantly harm efforts to overturn it in the future. The recent Louisiana and Missouri cases could provide the perfect test case. If the plaintiffs in the Louisiana or Missouri cases appeal to the Supreme Court, it could present the Court with the first opportunity to rewrite the "undue burden" standard. And, if they have resolve, it could perhaps present them with the opportunity for something even more.

[2] Another abortionist had received notice from Women's Hospital that they would grant the abortionist admitting privileges once he/she (court documents do not disclose the sex of the abortionists in the case) is able to find a doctor to cover for his/her service when not at the hospital.

[3] La. Admin. Code tit. XLXIII, §4541(B) (2018). ("Each member of the medical staff of the ASC, including physicians who practice under a use agreement, shall be a member in good standing on the medical staff of at least one hospital in the community and that hospital shall be licensed by the department.").

[4] Center for Reproductive Rights, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (Feb. 23, 2016), https://www.reproductiverights.org/case/whole-womans-health-v-hellerstedt. (Hellerstedt is not the most significant abortion case in two decades as the Center for Reproductive Rights alleges, what they appear to imply is the most significant case since Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. This is not exactly correct. Gonzales v. Carhart was arguably more significant as it represented the first instance that the Supreme Court allowed an abortion procedure to be completely banned on a premise unrelated to women's health (the court in this case implicitly conceded the possibility that intact D&E abortion was actually safer than most other late-term methods, but it banned its practice nonetheless. See Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 162-5 (2007)). However, for radically pro-abortion advocates, the Court's upholding a federal ban on partial birth abortion in Gonzales v. Carhart represented for them a set-back, and thus, through that lens, pro-abortion advocates may perceive the Hellerstedt decision as more significant as it actually accomplishes something significant in their favor. Nevertheless, the Hellerstedt decision is a very significant decision, but perhaps not as significant as pro-abortion advocates may believe it to be.).

October 12, 2018 (Alliance Defending Freedom) – On 11 October 2018, the Supreme Court of Norway set a new precedent on conscientious objection and freedom of conscience in the medical profession. The Court found that Dr. Katarzyna Jachimowicz acted within her rights when refusing to follow through with a medical procedure to which she had a moral objection. The Court told health authorities to respect the right to conscientious objection for medical professionals in their employment.

"Today's Supreme Court decision marks an important step in the right direction, not only for doctors, but for people of faith in all professions. The ruling protects one of the most fundamental rights, the right to act in accordance with one's deeply held beliefs. Dr. Jachimowicz takes her vocation as a medical professional seriously. She vowed to protect life, and objected to having any part in taking it. The Court established today that she had every right to do so," said Håkon Bleken, who represented Dr. Jachimowicz before the Court.

"Nobody should be forced to choose between following their conscience or pursuing their profession. We welcome this ruling from the Norwegian Supreme Court. It will set new standards for the protection of fundamental conscience rights in Norway and beyond. The Court's findings recognize the fundamental right to conscientious objection for medical staff, as protected by international law," said Robert Clarke, Director of European Advocacy for ADF International, a human rights organization that supported the case.

Important win for all European medical professionals

In 2015, Dr. Jachimowicz lost her employment with a General Practitioner Clinic in the municipality of Sauherad. She had refused to insert intrauterine devices (IUDs), which can act as abortifacients. Administering a procedure that could result in abortion contradicted her Christian faith.

International law protects the right of medical staff to conscientious objection. Nevertheless, her superiors fired Dr. Jachimowicz because she failed to comply with an instruction that she considered to be morally wrong. A lower court found that she had acted within her right to practise medicine in accordance with her conscience but healthcare authorities appealed the decision. The case was then heard at the Supreme Court of Norway at the end of August 2018.

"This win comes at a time when medical professionals across Europe are feeling increasingly threatened in their positions by a pressure to do things they believe to be morally wrong and unethical. As such, it provides a valuable legal precedent in protecting this inherent freedom across the continent. This judgment sends a clear message to the Norwegian authorities that conscience is a fundamental right under the European Convention on Human Rights which must be protected," said Clarke.

Manishkumar Patel was having an affair with Darshana Patel and the couple already had a son when she became pregnant again in 2007. Ms Patel told police that she became suspicious when she found a powdery substance in a drink he gave her.

She sent the powder off to a lab for testing, and it turned out to be mifepristone – the abortion pill.

Ms Patel managed to avoid drinking any of the drug-laced smoothie, but miscarried a few weeks later.

Intentional homicide

Police searching Manishkumar Patel's home found an envelope containing RU-486 abortion pills. The suspect later told police he had obtained the drugs in India, and he admitted to giving Darshana one pill.

After fleeing the country while on bail, Mr Patel was re-arrested in 2017 and was convicted in August of attempted first-degree intentional homicide of an unborn child. He told the court he didn't want another child because he was afraid the baby would have the same medical problems as his son.

Unlike many jurisdictions, Wisconsin has high consequences for harming an unborn child. Since 1998, the state has ruled that 'the killing of an unborn child' at any stage of pre-natal development is first-degree intentional homicide, according to the state's penal code.

In May, a doctor in Virginia was sentenced to twenty years in prison (of which 17 were suspended) for poisoning his girlfriend's tea with abortion pills, and so killing their unborn son.

“Give thanks to God that men like + Donald Wuerl entered our lives, touched us, encouraged us, taught us & left us a powerful example of leadership, humility and service to the Lord and the Church,” the Basilian priest wrote on Twitter.

Give thanks to God that men like +Donald Wuerl entered our lives, touched us, encouraged us, taught us & left us a powerful example of leadership, humility and service to the Lord and the Church. Wuerl hounded from office for becoming face of abuse crisis https://t.co/3L6sZAuqb0

Wuerl’s resignation comes in the wake of a barrage of allegations that he mishandled and covered up instances of criminal sexual abuse by priests while he was bishop of Pittsburgh, from 1988-2006. In a sweeping grand jury report on criminal sexual abuse released on August 14, Wuerl was mentioned some 200 times.

Wuerl was also accused in August by former apostolic nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Viganò of lying "shamelessly" in stating that he did not know about now ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's abuse of seminarians.

Rosica tweeted that Wuerl had been “hounded from office.”

The Salt and Light Media founder is known for his pro-homosexual views. Rosica has defended LGBT activist Fr. James Martin, rejected the Catechism’s description of the homosexual inclination as “objectively disordered,” and said the phrase “intrinsically disordered” is “harsh.” Rosica was a longtime admirer of the late Gregory Baum, a homosexual dissident former priest whom he interviewed on Salt and Light in 2012.

More recently, Rosica was scheduled to say Mass for the pro-LGBT All Inclusive Ministries in Toronto but cancelled after news of the event was widely published. Rosica has preached a “mission” at the LGBT-friendly parish Most Holy Redeemer in San Francisco.

Popular English Catholic blogger Deacon Nick Donnelly replied to Rosica’s tweet, stating that the priest “ignores the fact that @Cardinal_Wuerl is implicated in the cover up of priests raping children.”

“His paean on Wuerl is similar to his over the top praise of the notorious homosexual priest & heretic Gregory Baum,” continued Donnelly.

Regarding the Pope’s praise of Wuerl, Donnelly tweeted:

“@Cardinal_Wuerl is mentioned over 160 times in Pennsylvania Grand Jury into the rape of children by priests & its cover up by bishops. These 160 mentions were not commendations for his example in exposing the rape of children by priests. How is Wuerl a model bishop @Pontifex ?”

Damian Thompson, the editor-in-chief of the UK’s Catholic Herald, found Pope Francis’ letter to Wuerl “extraordinary” and “tone deaf.”

“Pope Francis’ letter to Wuerl is extraordinary,” he tweeted. “He had better hope that Wuerl’s handling of sex abuses stands up to close scrutiny.”

He then remarked, “‘Tone-deaf’ is a charitable description of Francis’s letter to Wuerl. It’s not going down well at all.”

“It really is hard to imagine how the Pope and Team Francis could be handling the sex abuse crisis any worse,” Thompson added.

Popular English blogger-priest Father Ray Blake tweeted in response to that remark, “There is so much sycophancy around the Pontiff that no-one can be objective in their advice.”

Reporter George Neumayr of the American Spectator encouraged his Twitter followers to read Pope Francis’ letter:

“Be sure to read the pope's sham letter to Wuerl that accompanies the announcement of his accepted resignation,” he wrote. “The pope calls Wuerl's practice of returning molesters to ministry mere ‘mistakes.’ Losing your car keys is a mistake; exposing children to an abuser is a crime.”

Neumayr also said that the Pope’s decision to ask Wuerl to say in Washington as the Apostolic Administrator was “corrupt”.

“I hear that the DC attorney general is moving, albeit embarrassingly slowly, toward an investigation of the McCarrick-Wuerl regime,” he tweeted. “The pope's corrupt decision to let Wuerl remain as apostolic administrator until his replacement arrives should spur the investigation even more.

Austen Ruse, president of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), after reading the news on NCR’s Edward Pentin’s Twitter account, tweeted, “I am now terrified.”

“In Pope's letter to Wuerl there is perhaps a sly swipe at +Vigano:,” he tweeted, "make the unity and mission of the Church grow above every kind of sterile division sown by the father of lies who, trying to hurt the shepherd, wants nothing more than that the sheep be dispersed (cf. Mt 26:31).”

Note: Follow LifeSite's new Catholic twitter account to stay up to date on all Church-related news. Click here: @LSNCatholic

KIRIKLAR, Turkey, October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The Turkish government released Friday an American Protestant pastor who spent 21 months in jail and two under house arrest, following persistent pressure from, and a secret deal with, the Trump administration.

Andrew Brunson, a pastor who had worked in Turkey for 20 years, was arrested in October 2016 as part of a crackdown against political opponents of the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after a failed coup attempt. The arrests ensnared “tens of thousands of teachers, politicians, police officers, journalists, and others were arrested or fired from their jobs in retaliation,” according to the LA Times.

He was put on trial for the crime of “Christianization,” with a Turkish judge attempting to link the North Carolina pastor to a political movement launched by Muslim Muhammed Fethullah Gülen and accusing him of helping members of the Kurdish Workers’ Party escape the country. The Turkish government considers both to be terrorist groups. If convicted, Brunson would spend the next 35 years in a Turkish prison.

Brunson professed his innocence and argued he was being persecuted for his Christian faith, as did the United States government. President Trump denounced his imprisonment as a “total disgrace,” while Vice President Mike Pence threatened to “impose significant sanctions on Turkey until Pastor Andrew Brunson is free.”

Turkey showed the first signs of relenting in July when it moved Brunson to house arrest instead of incarceration, but refused to fully release him, until today.

The judge at Brunson’s latest hearing sentenced him to time served and subsequently released him, Fox News reports. He was officially sentenced to three years and one month in prison, but was released because he had already served two years in detention.

“The court on Friday called two witnesses, following alleged tips from witness Levent Kalkan, who at a previous hearing had accused Brunson of aiding terror groups,” Fox News adds. “But the new witnesses didn't confirm Kalkan's story and another prosecution witness said she did not even know Brunson.”

The day before, NBC News quoted two senior Trump administration officials who predicted an imminent release for Brunson, thanks to a deal between the administration and the Turkish government. The deal’s specifics are unknown, but NBC’s sources claim it involves the United States promising to lighten economic pressure against Turkey.

The White House is not elaborating on any deal, but the president suggested Friday that U.S. efforts were ongoing and confirmed that Brunson will be coming home.

Pope Francis says abortion is like ‘hiring a hitman,’ but has repeatedly praised abortion advocates

VATICAN CITY, Italy, October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Caution is in order before taking Pope Francis’ condemnation of abortion Wednesday at face value, considering the pontiff’s praise for abortion’s purveyors and supporters, and his inconsistency when it comes to the life issue.

He also said, “a contradictory approach to life allows the suppression of human life in the mother’s womb in order to safeguard other values.”

“Is it right to kill a human being, no matter how small, to ‘solve a problem’?” the pope also asked. “No. How can it be ‘therapeutic, civilized or humane’ to kill an innocent and helpless life that is growing in the womb?”

‘There has been a consistent pattern of strongly pro-life statements proceeding very troubling betrayals of the faith’

While the comments were strong, Francis’ warm and welcomingdemeanor throughout his pontificate toward advocates of the taking of life in the womb raise a red flag, as does his abortion criticism at times precluding other infidelity to the faith.

One such instance was when he condemned abortion but then green-lighted contraception using the threat of the Zika virus for rationale.

“Having followed this pontificate closely over the last five years I must admit that the positive pro-life statements, while on one hand being very welcome, leave me apprehensive,” said Maria Madise, International Director for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. “There has been a consistent pattern of strongly pro-life statements proceeding very troubling betrayals of the faith.”

“One cannot help wondering if this new pro-life statement will be followed by something very concerning,” Madise said.

“For instance,” she told LifeSiteNews, “I recall, when Pope Francis shocked all faithful Catholics by suggesting in an interview that contraception was indeed licit when there is a possibility of transmission of Zika virus.”

“He predicated his remarks with a staunch condemnation of abortion,” said Madise. ‘Abortion is not the lesser of two evils. It is a crime,’ he said.”

While Francis has madenumerousstatementsindicating criticism of abortion, he has made others that are dubious regarding life, beginning not long into his papacy when he made headlines saying the Church is “obsessed” with gays, abortion, and birth control.

Sire told LifeSiteNews it is not something new for the pontiff to speak critically about abortion, and the fact Catholics find themselves having to parse Francis’ words says as much as any comment at hand.

“Bergoglio/Pope Francis has consistently spoken against abortion, so there is no change of course here,” Sire said.

“Can it be interpreted as veering to the right, insofar as making the pronouncement at all?” he continued. “I don't know. I presume Francis and his team are currently feeling the need to conciliate the right wing, but I would need to see more signs of that before being sure.”

“It is a measure of this ultra-political pope that one is prompted to see a statement of Catholic moral teaching in political terms,” said Sire.

History of promoting, welcoming abortion activists

The pope’s recurrent inviting conduct with pro-aborts has been most disconcerting to pro-life Catholics.

Bonino has also worked to liberalize Italian divorce laws, legalize recreational drugs, ban a national nuclear energy program, and has promoted nudism, same-sex “marriage,” transgenderism, the abolition of the armed forces, disbanding of NATO, the liberalization of porn laws, and mandatory sex education.

Madise told LifeSiteNews that conflicting statements from the Francis papacy necessitate that Catholics remain vigilant and prayerful for an authentic move toward fidelity for Church teaching.

“We must continue to pray for a genuine change of course in papal statements towards a consistent upholding of the perennial Church’s teaching,” she said. “However, we must also preserve vigilance amidst the many examples of contradiction that characterise the papal statements thus far.”

MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL, Minnesota, October 12, 2018, (LifeSiteNews) – A pro-gay Catholic bishop, credibly accused of sexually provocative behavior toward another man, has been dropped as a speaker at an upcoming diocesan retreat for clergy and parish leaders.

Retired Bishop Robert Lynch, formerly of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, was slated to speak at a “Formation Day” being held in the Archdiocese of Minneapolis-St. Paul at the end of November.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda sent out a short email Thursday evening to the priests of his diocese, announcing he was dropping Bishop Lynch from the retreat lineup due to widespread parishioner concern:

Dear Brothers,

I understand that many of you have been approached by parishioners concerned about the choice of Bishop Robert Lynch as a presenter at the Archdiocesan Fall Formation Day on November 29. If you are contacted on this matter in the future, kindly share that Bishop Lynch will no longer be participating.

Fraternally in Christ,

Archbishop Bernard Hebda

Bishop Lynch’s poor track record in dealing with sexual scandal in his former diocese plus the presence of homosexual scandal in his own life had made him a curious choice to lead the retreat which aims to address the current turmoil, division, and darkness the Church now faces, brought about primarily by the presence of Catholic clergy who have been active homosexuals.

The event is billed as:

A time of reflection for parish leaders to consider times of turmoil and division in the Church, and where we find faith and hope. What is the role of parish leaders in guiding parishioners to find a durable hope during times of division and darkness?

Lynch served as bishop of the St. Petersburg diocese from 1996 to 2016.

During his tenure, “The Diocese of St. Petersburg refused to release its priest records and acknowledged it had previously handled sexual abuse complaints without contacting authorities,” reported The Tampa Bay Times in 2002.

In the end, the diocese handed over nearly $6 million dollars to settle sexual harassment claims.

“You have to trust me by getting to know how I live, what priorities I place in my life,” said Bishop Lynch, according to the same Times report. “My life kind of has to be an open book. That is to say, there can't be any secret part to it.”

Yet there was a “secret part” to Bishop Lynch’s life.

In 2003, a married diocesan staff person, Bill Urbanski, received a $100,000 settlement, as reported by Catholic Culture and many other media outlets, because the bishop had crossed “‘boundaries’ by means of inappropriate demonstrations of affection for his Director of Communications.”

Urbanski accused Lynch of forcing him to share a room when they traveled, grabbing his thigh and showering him with expensive gifts. At one point when they were in a Santa Fe, N.M., hotel room, Urbanski said Lynch asked to take pictures of him without a shirt so he could superimpose his head on Urbanski's muscular body for Christmas cards. The married father of two said he did as he was told, then vomited in the lobby.

LifeSiteNews reported on a column that Lynch wrote in the Tampa Bay Times in which he indicated that homosexual relationships present no risk to the Church, and in fact can be godly and elevate society and the Church. He wrote:

I do not wish to lend our voice to notions which might suggest that same-sex couples are a threat incapable of sharing relationships marked by love and holiness and, thus, incapable of contributing to the edification of both the Church and the wider society.

In 2016, shortly after the horrific Orlando, Florida shooting in which 49 people were killed at the Pulse Nightclub, which catered to homosexual clientele, Bishop Lynch penned an editorial, suggesting that Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality somehow breeds contempt for gays:

Sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people. Attacks today on LGBT men and women often plant the seed of contempt, then hatred, which can ultimately lead to violence.

Pope accepts Cardinal Wuerl’s resignation

VATICAN CITY, October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl from his position as the Archbishop of Washington, DC.

This morning the Archdiocese of Washington released an English translation of a letter of Pope Francis to Cardinal Wuerl accepting his resignation “from the pastoral government of the Archdiocese of Washington.”

Pope Francis said that he was aware that Wuerl’s request “rests on two pillars” in his ministry: “to seek in all things the greater glory of God and to procure the good of the people entrusted to your care.” He observed that their shared mission is “to take care that the people not only remain united, but become witnesses of the Gospel.” (Full “unofficial courtesy translation” from the Archdiocese of Washington published below.)

Returning to his frequent theme of “the father of lies,” on whom he blames the current unrest in the Church regarding clerical sexual abuse and episcopal cover-up, Francis insinuated that Wuerl is a victim. He discerned in Wuerl’s request “the heart of the shepherd...who prioritizes actions that support, stimulate and make the unity of the Church grow above every kind of sterile division sown by the father of lies who, trying to hurt the shepherd, wants nothing more than that the sheep be dispersed.”

The Holy Father made it clear in the letter that he believes Wuerl did not cover up abuse but merely made some mistakes. He wrote:

You have sufficient elements to “justify” your actions and distinguish between what it means to cover up crimes or not to deal with problems, and to commit some mistakes. However, your nobility has led you not to choose this way of defense. Of this, I am proud and thank you.

Francis clearly believes that it would be good for the Church if Wuerl stayed on as the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. and praised Wuerl further for not defending himself.

He wrote, “In this way, you make clear the intent to put God’s Project first, before any kind of personal project, including what could be considered as good for the Church. Your renunciation is a sign of your availability and docility to the Spirit who continues to act in his Church.”

Francis asked Wuerl to administrate the Archdiocese until his successor is appointed. The Wall Street Journal stated today that “Church officials” have indicated possible candidates are Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, N.J., Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport, Conn, and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego.

Wuerl had originally resigned on his 75th birthday, Nov. 12, 2015, as is the custom among Catholic bishops. However, all resignations have to be accepted by the reigning pontiff, and delaying acceptance is considered a pontifical sign of approval.

The Cardinal has been a figure of much contention since June, however, because of his relationship to disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and his role in handling clerical sexual abuse cases as Bishop of Pittsburgh.

Wuerl also released a statement today, saying, that “the Holy Father’s decision to provide new leadership to the Archdiocese can allow all of the faithful, clergy, religious and lay, to focus on healing and the future. It permits this local Church to move forward.”

“Once again for any past errors in judgment I apologize and ask for pardon,” he said. “My resignation is one way to express my great and abiding love for you the people of the Church of Washington.”

UNOFFICIAL COURTESY TRANSLATION

To our Venerable Brother

Card. DONALD WILLIAM WUERL

Archbishop of Washington

On September 21st I received your request that I accept your resignation from the pastoral government of the Archdiocese of Washington.

I am aware that this request rests on two pillars that have marked and continue to mark your ministry: to seek in all things the greater glory of God and to procure the good of the people entrusted to your care. The shepherd knows that the wellbeing and the unity of the People of God are precious gifts that the Lord has implored and for which he gave his life. He paid a very high price for this unity and our mission is to take care that the people not only remain united, but become witnesses of the Gospel “That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (Jn 17.21). This is the horizon from which we are continually invited to discern all our actions.

I recognize in your request the heart of the shepherd who, by widening his vision to recognize a greater good that can benefit the whole body (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 235), prioritizes actions that support, stimulate and make the unity and mission of the Church grow above every kind of sterile division sown by the father of lies who, trying to hurt the shepherd, wants nothing more than that the sheep be dispersed (cf. Mt 26.31).

You have sufficient elements to “justify” your actions and distinguish between what it means to cover up crimes or not to deal with problems, and to commit some mistakes. However, your nobility has led you not to choose this way of defense. Of this, I am proud and thank you.

In this way, you make clear the intent to put God’s Project first, before any kind of personal project, including what could be considered as good for the Church. Your renunciation is a sign of your availability and docility to the Spirit who continues to act in his Church.

In accepting your resignation, I ask you to remain as Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese until the appointment of your successor.

Dear brother, I make my own the words of Sirach: “You who fear the Lord, trust in him, and your reward will not be lost” (2.8). May the Virgin Mary protect you with her mantle and may the strength of the Holy Spirit give you the grace to know how to continue to serve him in this new time that the Lord gives you.

Irish gov’t is wrong: Citizens did not approve their radical abortion bill

October 12, 2018 (Life Institute) – Minister Simon Harris and his fellow abortion campaigners are insisting that the people voted on May 25th for a liberal abortion regime, and that no life-saving amendments to the abortion bill should be considered.

Harris is even refusing to accept an amendment which would outlaw abortion on disability grounds as he says the vote has given him a mandate to proceed as he sees fit.

The evidence, however, would suggest otherwise.

Firstly, the Referendum Commission, the independent statutory body established by the government, clarified exactly what the subject of the referendum was for the people before the vote.

The Commission's job, according to its website "is to communicate factual information about referendums," adding they are "neutral and impartial." Their role is to "explain to the public what a referendum proposal means". They receive a budget of €1.5 million to fulfil this role for a referendum – expenditure far in excess of most campaign groups, especially those on the pro-life side.

They report that this budget enables them to prepare "a substantial advertising campaign on television, radio, outdoor, press and in online digital and social media." This is hugely significant because campaign groups are not permitted to use TV and radio advertising at any time, even during a referendum campaign, so the reach of the Commission is therefore greater, and, as it is sold as being impartial, more authoritative and influential.

So what did the Commission tell voters? Their information booklet, sent to every household in the State, clearly explained: "You are not being asked in this referendum to vote on any particular law relating to the termination of pregnancy."

This fact was also confirmed in national media interviews by the Chair of the Commission, Justice Isobel Kennedy – and was repeated ad nauseam in the afore-mentioned nationwide advertising campaigns.

Furthermore, in July, High Court President Justice Peter Kelly, ruling in Byrne vs Ireland and ors, found that : "All that the people were being asked to vote on in the referendum was the repeal of the present text of Article 40.3.3 and its replacement by [the sentence contained in the 36th Amendment]. The people were not being invited to vote on a particular piece of legislation. There was no guarantee that the intended legislation would ever be passed, or passed in the form notified by the Government. It would have been quite wrong for the Commission to assume that the legislative intention of the Government was one that would ever come about."

It's worth highlighting that sentence from High Court President, Justice Peter Kelly again: "The people were not being invited to vote on a particular piece of legislation". But the media is allowing Simon Harris to get away with denying the words of the Referendum Commission and the ruling of the High Court.

The truth is that many Yes voters were reluctant supporters of repeal, bullied into removing the 8th by the scare-mongering and threats from an Taoiseach and others that women would die.

In fact, many Yes voters have expressed serious concerns with Harris' plans. RTÉ's exit poll found that only half of voters agreed with the 12-weeks on demand provision of the abortion bill.

The government's mandate is not what it claims. Pro-life TDs including Mattie McGrath, Michael Collins and Carol Nolan, are seeking amendments to ban abortion on disability grounds, and to protect pro-life doctors. Most reasonable people would support these amendments. Minister Harris is deluded if he thinks otherwise.

Action point:

please visit, call and email your TD and ask them to support these amendments. Call our office on 01 8730465 to get leaflets urging others to do the same.

An excellent question. It forces us to ask whether we have ever imagined that in praying for our shepherds we were thereby paying tribute to their rectitude and decency. Think of the faithful whose priests, over, say, the last 30 years, have invited them to pray for John Paul our pope, or for Benedict our pope …

"… and for Rembert our bishop"—who used $450,000 of his flock's contributions to buy the silence of his partner in sodomy.

"… and for Lawrence our bishop"—who throttled a male prostitute who was in the act of fellating him.

"… and for Thomas our bishop"—who struck a pedestrian with his Buick and drove off leaving him to die.

"… and for Patrick our bishop"—who outfitted his catamite with a beeper to summon him for sex.

"… and for Theodore our bishop"—who slept with priests and seminarians and fondled boys.

"… and for Robert our bishop"—who gave $30 million in no-bid construction contracts to a tri-athlete and "special friend" and paid out $100,000 in another settlement with an unhappy (male) roommate.

"… and for Donald our bishop"—who turned up at the hospital beaten to a pulp and claimed he fell down the stairs.

"… and for Daniel our bishop"—who had a screaming spat with an angry rent-boy in his driveway.

"... and for Joseph our bishop"—who tweeted "Nighty-night, baby" to a chum and claimed he was texting his sister.

Now that you mention it, Your Eminence, "Francis our pope" fits into the roster with hardly any trouble at all.

USA has many home schoolers – bishops in USA are not united, as homeschooling can have an ideological basis – kids may have special needs

are parents qualified to homeschool them?

Let's answer that last question first. Yes, parents are qualified to teach their own children. In better times, Catholics could rely on their bishops to support the role of parents as "primary educators."

Why is it, then, that the "bishops in USA are not united" in support of home schoolers? The note is chilling in its answer to that obvious question; the bishops of English-language Circle C referred to "an ideological basis." As Patrick Reilly points out, liberal opponents of home schooling regularly use that term to disparage the home-schooling movement. The "ideological" label, Reilly remarks, is "what faithful Catholic home schoolers endure frequently from fellow Catholics, priests and even bishops – the charge that they are too 'conservative' and too 'moralistic.'"

It's painful enough that home schoolers are portrayed as "ideological" by champions of the public-school system, in which an increasingly toxic ideology reigns supreme. It's outrageous that bishops, who should be defending loyal Catholics against this sort of unjustified attack, are instead joining forces with the assailants. Particularly outrageous, because many Catholic families would not be home schooling if the bishops had fulfilled their own responsibilities, and ensured the existence of parochial schools where young people could learn without being subject to the influence of the dominant secular ideology.

Would it be too much to ask that one or two bishops might inform the Synod assembly about the benefitsof home schooling? About the often heroic work of the mothers (it is, in most cases, the mothers) who devote themselves entirely to the work of educating their children? They deserve the full support of the institutional Church.

Yes, there is a profile of typical Catholic home-schooling families, and it's not inaccurate. Most are large families; the parents have been open to life. Most of the mothers stay at home, sacrificing income to provide a healthy home life and an authentically Catholic education for their children. These families are doing exactly what the Catholic Church has traditionally encouraged families to do, swimming against some of the most powerful currents in our society. They deserve the bishops' support. Where is it?

Come to think of it, can you point to any recent document or statement from the Vatican, or from the US bishops' conference, that provided support and encouragement for young families in which the mother stays home with the children? Take your time searching. I can wait. I've already waited – from the time when my children were born until now, when they're all adults. Like so many other home schoolers, we've been looking to the hierarchy for help all these years, and now, reading this report from the Synod, I'm reminded of this morning's Gospel:

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; of if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? [Lk. 11:11-12]

October 12, 2018 (Family Research Council) – If you thought being a conservative in America was hard, try being one in Hollywood. It takes real courage to stand up in a culture that's suffocatingly liberal and challenge the norms on issues like ours. Ask Dean Cain. The former Superman star almost had to be made of steel to withstand the number of attacks fired his way just for doing what other celebrities are applauded for: speaking his mind.

Like other Hollywood conservatives, Dean is used to the harassment in an industry where your liberal credentials are almost as important as your acting ones. When he came to this year's Values Voter Summit to talk about his new film Gosnell, he knew how the Left would react. For days leading up to VVS – and every week since – his Twitter page has been lit up by people who can't understand the concept of open debate. He was threatened, harassed, called intolerant (and much worse) by a social media mob bent on forcing him to back down.

He didn't.

I will happily defend the things that I say, and the things that I stand for," he told the crowd at VVS. "I take that sort of heat and abuse every single day, but it doesn't bother me in the least...it doesn't make me mad, it just shows people's intolerance towards listening to another opinion. Just the fact that I'm here, just the fact that I'm here people were blowing me up all day long with the most ridiculous things that you could ever hear. Talk about intolerance. It's ridiculous. I take heat. It doesn't bother me, I welcome it, because I sleep well at night. I know I'm doing something that matches my convictions and my heart and I'll happily defend the things that I say and I stand for.

It's been three weeks since the Summit, and some people in Hollywood still can't let it go. Yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter leaked a video of actor Tom Arnold getting in Cain's face for associating with FRC. "@RealDeanCain is another @realDonaldTrump loving fake Christian coward which makes Dean Cain anti-LGBTQ & racist. #complicit," he posted (and later deleted). In person, things got even more heated.

"The onus for Arnold's tweet," according to onlookers, "was his objection to Cain appearing at the Values Voter Summit, hosted by conservative Christian group the Family Research Council." In an R-rated tirade, Arnold says FRC is what makes teenagers kill themselves. "They try to keep them out of f‑‑‑‑‑‑ schools... Don't be with them. If I was with Nazis, if I go to their convention, they're like that, Dean, I'm telling you. They're that bad. They're hurting people."

"I speak my mind," Dean fired back. Both men were in a Glendale studio as part of a "Larry King Now" show, where Dean was on hand to promote his new movie, Gosnell, about real-life serial killer/abortionist Kermit Gosnell. "It's a s‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑ movie," Arnold says. "I was giving him a break by not assuming he was stupid about FRC, which I do liken to Nazis... now I see he's one of them. He played this icon, Superman, but he's an idiot."

This from the "tolerant" Left! And, of course, the greatest irony is that the Nazis are the ones who wanted to exterminate millions of people. We're trying to protect them, protect life, and protect women. If you're looking for supremacists, try the roots of the abortion movement and the eugenics of Margaret Sanger. This pioneer of the Planned Parenthood ethic was crystal clear about her motivations. "We don't want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she wrote. Even today, 79 percent of the group's surgical abortion facilities are located within walking distance of black or Hispanic neighborhoods. And Hollywood is calling us racist? Planned Parenthood takes the lives of 247 black babies every day. Where is Tom Arnold's outrage about that?

Dean Cain has done nothing but try to have an honest conversation about the state of our culture. You can help him by going out and supporting the opening weekend of Gosnell. Hollywood hates the truth – so go see the movie that helps spread it about abortion. Click here to find one of the 600 theaters closest to you!

Two German states to investigate sex abuse crimes of Catholic Church

October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – As in the U.S., some states in Germany will now investigate clerical sex abuse cases of the Catholic Church.

The State of Bavaria has just announced that it is demanding full access to the files of all of the Bavarian dioceses. A similar call comes from the State of Lower Saxony. The federal government made it clear that in criminal cases, the Church has to open her files to the State.

In the wake of the 25 October publication of the German bishops' sex-abuse report, both the federal government and the states of Bavaria and Lower Saxony announced interest in its own investigations of the Church's files.

First, the German minister of justice, Katarina Barley, speaking for the federal government, gave an interview on 3 October and made it clear that any criminal events within the Catholic Church have to be “investigated by the police, the district attorneys, and the penal courts.”

“The Church law does not stand above the criminal law – it is the opposite,” she explains. Since the State can only start investigating an abuse case when it has been informed about it in due time, the German minister encourages victims to approach the State now.

When asked by the journalist about the fact that some German dioceses are said to have destroyed files containing information about abuse cases, Barley responded with these words: “To destroy or manipulate in order to protect someone from criminal prosecution can itself be a criminal act” which can be punished with up to “five years in prison.” She also explains that, if there exists a clear indication of a crime, the State can “confiscate” Church files. “There is not such a thing as a secret archive in a state under the rule of law,” she concluded.

Then, on 8 October, the minister of justice of the state of Lower Saxony, Barbara Havliza, called upon the Dioceses of Hildesheim and Osnabrück to open their files for a state investigation to be conducted by the General Attorney.

“I now expect from the dioceses a good and constructive cooperation with justice,” she said.

She insists that it is the task of justice, and not of the Church, to investigate the charges. The minister has already instructed three district general attorneys to investigate the recently published episcopal sex-abuse report in order to find out whether all the cases mentioned therein have duly been reported to the state for a criminal investigation. She sees that this is not the case and that the Church herself has conducted the investigations, instead of involving the state.

Finally, on 12 October, the State of Bavaria announced that it called upon the Bavarian dioceses to open their files to the district attorneys of Munich, Nürnberg, and Bamberg, so that they may investigate the sex-abuse scandal. With the help of the German bishops' abuse study, the State received “information which could constitute the reasonable suspicion of possible crimes,” explains the district attorney's office of Bamberg.

The district attorney's office in Munich explains that “we now therefore take the Catholic bishops at their word” and expect cooperation from them, even asking them to make sure that the State is being sufficiently informed about each individual criminal incident. The dioceses of Bamberg and Würzburg have already announced their cooperation.

Bishop Heiner Wilmer of Hildesheim went even a step farther and himself offered to open the Church's files to the State. “I am in favor of an open approach. We have nothing to hide,” says Wilmer. He even wants to open the files to external people. “Otherwise, we will not regain credibility and trust.”

As part of the gravity, for example, one former bishop of Hildesheim who is now deceased – Heinrich Maria Janssen – is convincingly said to have abused a boy for five years back in the 1950s and 1960s.

The recently published sex-abuse report, as initiated and financed by the German bishops, has mentioned about 3,677 victims and 1,670 clerical offenders. The majority of the victims were male. However, the MHG Study, as it is called, has come under heavy criticism because it does not even mention by name any of the offenders, nor those in higher places who covered up for them.

As the psychiatrist Manfred Lütz, M.D., shows in his detailed critique, only 60% of the reported cases have been confirmed as being “without doubts.” The rest of the cases have either been dismissed by the district attorney (6%), or they have resulted in a “statement-against-statement situation” without a clear investigation (34%). Thus, Lütz states, the MHG Study did not even present the data correctly. He thoroughly criticizes its defective scientific quality. While he agrees that there has been much “apalling inactivity and cover-up on the part of the Church's authorities,” he insists upon first establishing “reliable data.”

Professor Christian Pfeiffer – a criminologist who had originally started this episcopal study, but had disagreements with the bishops over certain matters of censorship – also criticizes the MHG study and points to the fact that it does not specifically mention any names.

“A consequence is that the scientists were not able to assign their findings to individual dioceses and the responsible bishops,” he explains. Only full transparency will create trustworthiness, according to this German scientist. “Personal consequences” must also be drawn. Pfeiffer finally praised the State investigations in the U.S., with the help of which “full transparency” can still be achieved.

Note: Follow LifeSite's new Catholic twitter account to stay up to date on all Church-related news. Click here: @LSNCatholic

So when a pro-lifer cuts through the spin by bluntly stating the truth, the results are always telling.

Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson did just that Thursday night in the following segment:

It concerns a Los Angeles ordinance forcing city contractors to disclose whatever ties they may have to the National Rifle Association, which guest Ethan Bearman defended on the grounds that it was pressuring an organization whose policies allegedly endanger people’s lives. Carlson decided to test that theory with another organization California likes more than the NRA.

How about mandatory disclosure? You give money to Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood kills people! Literally, kills people, the leading cause of death of Americans [...] Shouldn’t we know if you’ve given money to Planned Parenthood?

To his credit, Bearman displayed some intellectual consistency by suggesting that would be “fair game” if a local jurisdiction chose to require it. But judging by initial reactions, most won’t get that far through the segment before seeing red.

Media Matters highlighted the “literally kills people” and “leading cause of death” quotes without comment, as if the statements’ outrageousness was self-evident. Twitter is chock-full of incredulous mockery.

In a piece that’s been promoted by multiple “news” sites including MSN and the San Francisco Gate, The Wrap’s Jon Levine complains that Carlson “accused Planned Parenthood of systemic murder” and that Bearman didn’t challenge it.

The Planned Parenthood charge from Carlson is not a new one for many conservatives. Though it went unexplored Thursday, he was almost certainly referring to the organization’s role in providing abortions for women which has stirred ire among Republicans for decades. Planned Parenthood also provides a suite of other women’s health services that was even praised by Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

As for whether abortion is America’s leading cause of death, the Centers for Disease Control’s leading cause of legally-recognized deaths is heart disease, which killed 635,260 people in 2016. By contrast, the CDC reports at least 652,639 abortions in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available (while warning that several states don’t report any of their abortions), while the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute puts the number at 926,200 the same year. Either way, abortion is deadlier.

What’s most remarkable about incidents like this is the way the people outraged by the truth don’t even try to make a case for why it isn’t the truth. Does the need to prove one’s position simply not occur to the average pro-abort, because their wokeness is self-justifying? Do they know deep down they can’t prove it, and hope their followers won’t notice?

The answer is likely “all of the above,” a combination that might be good for hyping up fellow travelers but doesn’t exactly offer a solid foundation. Skilled pro-abortion sophists are the exception; if pro-lifers simply insist on the blunt truth the way Tucker Carlson phrased it, most of their bluster will collapse for all to see.

October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – An important victory for freedom of political expression—especially for Christians—was won on October 4 when a panel of three superior court judges ruled in favor of the Christian Heritage Party (CHP) of Canada in their lawsuit against the City of Hamilton. The judges stated that the Christian Heritage Party has the right to express political speech regardless of whether some Canadians find that speech offensive, and struck down the decision of the City of Hamilton to remove ads that the CHP had previously placed in bus shelters.

The CHP’s lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos noted that the case “involved bus shelter ads by the CHP addressing a local policy the City of Hamilton was developing which allows people to use the washroom, change room, or shower that corresponds with their gender identity and not their genetic gender. The CHP placed three identical ads addressing this live political issue.” These policies have been extremely controversial right across North America for the past several years.

The ads—which were accompanied by a literature drop of over 3,600 fliers addressing the same issue—showed a male entering a door marked with the label “Ladies Showers” with a simple slogan: “Competing human rights. Where is the justice?” These ads had been pre-vetted by the company utilized by the City of Hamilton to sell ad-space on City property. “The ads were up for at least one week until they were taken down without notice and without any formal process being followed,” Polizogopoulos told me by email.

“A member of the public had seen the ads, called the CBC, which then contacted the City for comment,” he noted. “In response to the CBC inquiry, the City engaged in a rushed and organized process to take down the ads without notifying the CHP or giving them an opportunity to respond. It was clear in the evidence that the City was only concerned with how the ads might affect its image.”

After pulling the billboards, the City of Hamilton apologized for the “offensive” nature of the ads, noting that they wished to fix their relationship with the transgender community and even formally flying a transgender flag. In response, the Christian Heritage Party sued the City of Hamilton, with Polizogopoulos observing that “if this type of political censorship was upheld, it could have been used as an authority to allow a sitting government to shut down any kind of comment or criticism of its policy decisions.”

The judges strongly concurred with that view, stating in their October 4 decision that the City of Hamilton had violated the Charter rights of the Christian Heritage Party. “A political party’s ability to advertise on bus shelters is an important phenomenon for the political process and for society as a whole,” they wrote. They added a much-needed and firm rebuke to the current progressive trend of equating words with physical violence by stating firmly that “Speech is not ‘violence’ just because people may find it offensive.”

In the current political and legal climate, this victory is much-needed and far more significant than it would have been several years ago. The decision simply “reaffirms our longstanding tradition of honouring freedom of expression and freedom of political expression,” Polizogopoulos stated—but “it is a very important victory because over the past few years there have been multiple cases involving municipalities censoring speech they deemed too controversial and increasingly, there were cases that have upheld the censorship.”

The City of Hamilton is considering further legal action, with one councilor stating rather dramatically that the city has “a moral obligation” to appeal the decision, which urges the two sides to work out a settlement. In the meantime, this victory should be welcomed by Christians and advocates of freedom of speech right across Canada—and the political spectrum.

October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Earlier this week I had to make a long trip in my car, so I turned on National Public Radio, which is always a good way to stay awake as the liberal news coverage raises one’s heart rate and dilates the nostrils.

Apart from noticing that, as usual, the news coverage was obviously biased in favor of Democrats, without even an attempt made to disguise it (I suppose they are assuming that most listeners are either too liberal or too stupid to notice), I was struck by an enormous contradiction that kept me pondering all day long and days after.

The NPR news featured (not once but multiple times) statements from Planned Parenthood and NARAL. These were responding to “the fear of the reversal of Roe v. Wade” in the wake of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court. They made pledges to expand access to surgical and pharmaceutical abortion across the country, to ensure that state legislatures were as strongly “pro-choice” as possible (just in case the question were thrown by the court back to the state level), to promote heavily programs that would “destigmatize” abortion, and so on.

It was demonic to hear the unwavering commitment of these organizations to the ongoing slaughter of unborn baby humans, which of course NPR reported on as neutrally as if they were talking about the weather, the stock market, or the death of a famous jazz musician.

The banality of evil—has it ever been clearer?

The contradiction loomed when a few moments later a feature show began, in which a person from NPR conducted an extremely interesting interview with Nicole Chung, author of the new book All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir. Chung speaks about her experience growing up as a Korean in a white family. She was born 10 weeks premature and her biological parents, being overwhelmed with other problems, gave her up for adoption. A Catholic family adopted her and lavished great love on her—a fact to which Chung returned again and again with obvious affection and gratitude. I found myself really impressed with Nicole Chung, with her respectfulness, eloquence, honesty, and radiance as she spoke about the life that her adoptive parents gave her.

Did anyone at NPR think about the fact that this joyful woman of 37, with a family of her own, who has written a memoir that has already been immensely helpful for countless adoptive parents and adoptees, this woman who was being honored on national radio for her literary accomplishment—she would have been a prime victim of the abortionists of Planned Parenthood and NARAL? They would have counseled her biological parents to “terminate the fetus” on account of the difficult circumstances. They would have argued that it was only a “blob of tissue” with no human or personal value. They would have maintained that adoption is an emotionally draining and expensive process and that it is far simpler and “cleaner” to end the pregnancy (and leave the world better off, with one less hungry mouth to feed and one less source of environmental pollution). In short, they would have expunged Nicole Chung from the face of the earth.

In doing so, they would have deprived her of a life of her own, and the experience of love; they would have deprived her adoptive parents of a child to lavish love upon. The world would have lost a great writer; above all, and most simply, the world would have lost a person, with the dignity and depth found in every human soul. Isn’t Nicole Chung’s story potentially the story of every aborted child? Of every child who could have been brought to term and offered up for adoption, but whom the bloody hands of Planned Parenthood and kindred organizations have ripped prematurely from their mothers’ wombs?

No one, short of God, could ever grasp the gaping wound that has been left in the human race due to so many hundreds of millions of persons missing from our world, our lives, our families, our communities. So much that has been lost and will never be found. May the Lord create soon the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness will, at last, be at home (cf. 2 Peter 3:13), and the murderer will no longer stalk outside the womb to seize the child (cf. Rev 12:4). Maranatha.